Sonic Racing | DJcube

Original Platform: iOS
Original release: 19th September 2019
Version Played: iOS
Available to buy: Subscription Only

An Apple Arcade exclusive game, this is a strange version of Sonic Team Racing, built just for the iPhone. I initially dismissed this for playing as I thought it was a port of Sonic Team Racing with some features removed, but I was playing other Apple Arcade games and thought I’d check it out. I was surprised by what I found, and not in a good way – it’s stripped down to the point that I’d compare this more to the Java version of Sonic All-Stars Racing.

While the handling does feel good, it’s been made so incredibly basic to work on a touch screen. You can turn left/right and use items. That’s the entire control scheme. Acceleration and braking is automatic, there’s no powerslides or advanced features. There’s just nothing to it at all. The team mechanic is here, so you have two allies, but there’s no item swapping and the only “team” ability is going over a boost will light it up, allowing for another teammate to get a stronger boost from it.

The worst part is the structure of the game. Or, to be more precise, the complete lack of one. You press race, you’re paired against a random opponent (online, although the game also has fake CPU players for when no match is found) and play a one lap race. And that’s it. The track is random, you don’t even get to vote from a couple. It’s just doing lots of single lap races, unlocking better equipment over time, replacing any skill with just having better stats from playing the game more.